


Automaton

by GashouseGables



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Being Lost, Domestic Fluff, Edward is Irish Catholic and you're gonna like it, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Marriage, Wedding Fluff, the passage of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24858451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GashouseGables/pseuds/GashouseGables
Summary: A small wedding reception, a new clock and a graveyard.
Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Automaton

_ 1930, Fort Wayne, IN _

Carlisle and Esme Cullen’s wedding party happened on such an unfortunately dreary day. It was a small party - another doctor from the hospital and his wife, the neighbours which were a well-to-do widow and her grandson. The only family present consisted of Esme’s younger brother Edward.

“This must be a happy day for you, son.” The doctor, a Doctor Goldstien, says, smiling very happily for someone both offended by Carlisle’s perceived youth, and envious of his pretty bride. Not for the first time, Edward wished he could simply take the words as they were said, instead of being privy to the pompous jealousy underneath. “Surely your parents should be here to see it?” The man asks.

Edward inclined his head. “I’m sure they would have liked to, though I should hope not!” Edward chuckles lightly, as he goes on to pleasantly explain; “Crawled out of their graves, all covered in maggots? I think it would dampen the party quite a bit.” Edward tuts, and the man blinks at him in surprise.

“... Quite.” He said stiffly, before going to join his own wife on the settee. “The humour of the youth, I don’t think it suits me.” He told the woman quietly, plucking a cookie from her saucer.

“He’s a handsome fellow, and I always thought it unfair if a man was both charming and beautiful.” His wife replies. Edward can ignore the backhanded compliment well enough, and casts a look to the happy couple. 

Esme and Carlisle were speaking with their head bowed together. To the room, surely it was only the sweet-nothings of newlyweds.

To Edward, it was something a little more dire.

“If you find it too much - hold your breath, we can excuse ourselves for a moment.” Carlisle explains to Esme gently.

Edward casts a glance at the only other person in the room he could successfully call his peer. The widow’s grandson, a boy of fifteen, had arrived a little late, having scraped his knee in a schoolyard scuffle.

The blood might have been fully dried, but still the smell permeated the air, and left Esme with starkly black eyes.

“I’m alright, Carlisle. I wouldn’t want to ruin our party,” Esme assures him, squeezing his hand before petting it slightly and stepping away.

Mildly exasperated, Carlisle meets Edward eyes.  _ ‘The party!’ _ Carlisle mouths at the boy, rolling his eyes just slightly. Esme was so intent on being the hostess she wouldn’t dream of neglecting her duties to her guests.

Edward couldn’t tell him - that as much as she tried to tamp it down - Esme did still see herself as mostly a burden. Albeit, a burden the two men were very fond of. 

But it was an insecurity that wasn’t Edward’s to air, so he only shrugs. He glances at Esme, and the way she swallows several times before she speaks to the widow with her untouched teacup in her hands.

Edward leaves for the kitchen and finds a worn baseball that had been in the kitchen pantry - leftover from the previous tenants. In the pantry were also Edward’s second-best dress shoes, a few handkerchiefs, and some extra balls of yarn. As well as two tins of biscuits, purchased as the last thing to be carefully pressed upon a guest when they left this very party. When you didn’t eat - strange things could accumulate in a pantry.

“Joseph, is it?” Edward asks the boy as he walks back to the party, who looks up, a little startled. Edward had made no move to speak with him before.

“Yes?” He asks.

Edward holds up the ball. “A game outside?” He offers. It was dusk and still cloudy. Carlisle sends him a mental thank you.

At that, the boy visibly brightens, getting to his feet with a nod. “Gladly!”

Edward leads them outside, and a calm game of catch stretches between them. Edward is at a loss of what to say - he had finished his second round of university and had spent the last couple years helping Esme adjust. It had been a long while since he’d had to talk to a teenager.

But it seems Joseph was bored enough to break the silence. “My parents are dead too.” He says, and Edward thought his tasteless joke had gone unnoticed. “Train accident.” He adds.

Edward hums, a little too many years between his parents and himself to remember the grief as accurately. “Your grandmother seems lovely.” He replies.

Joseph shrugs a shoulder, tossing underarm and grimaces as the ball flies off course. “She’s alright - just fusses too much - sorry.” Edward counts out his steps carefully as he picks the ball off the ground at a steady human pace. He swings it back to Joseph in a graceful arc.

“Your sister’s pretty.” Joseph says as he catches the ball, though he blushes at Edward’s raised eyebrow. “Um, but I have a girl.” He adds quickly as he hurriedly tosses the ball back. “Her name’s Sophie. Do you have one?”

Edward catches the ball and grunts out a negative, not particularly pleased at the topic.

“Oh, but I bet you have had one.” Joseph says easily. “What was her name?”

Uncomfortable, Edward shook his head. “No, I’ve never.”

“ _ Really _ ?” Joseph stops mid-motion on his throw. “Never ever?”

“Not ever.” Edward says, tone blunt but not harsh. At the very least, the boy’s over-blown surprise could be flattering.

The boy lines up and tosses again. “Why not? Surely they like  _ you _ .” There’s some begrudging tone in the last word that makes Edward laugh.

“None …” At this, Edward hesitates.  _ Tanya’s aspirations don’t meet mine? _ It sounded a little silly to say to a teenager. He hears a truck rumble down the road, stopping at their house. “Well, I suppose I was never fond enough of anyone.” He settles on.

But Joseph laughs. “You don’t have to make it all like  _ that _ .” He says, looking all too eager to dole out sage advice at a time like this. “It’s just nice to have someone to write letters to and to pet a little.”

Edward laughs, incredulous. “Where are  _ you _ doing any petting?” He asks.

Simultaneously, Edward is listening to an exchange at the front door.

“Are you Cullen? We have a package.” An unfamiliar voice said.

Carlisle thanks them and asks them to bring it to the living room.

Edward turns his attention back to Joseph, who shrugs, looking very smug. “I told you - my granny fusses too much, but she’s happy enough if I stay in the house.” He informs Edward smarmily.

“Good lord.” Edward muttered - a den of iniquity formed under the poor old woman’s very nose.

Mrs Goldstien opens the backdoor, and begins to wave at them both in excitement. “Oh boys - come inside,” she calls to them, beaming, “it’s the most wonderful thing!”

Edward catches the ball deftly and leads the way back into the party room. A large wooden box stands next to the settee, and Mrs Goldstein pets Joseph’s arm with glee. “A faraway gift - from Europe!” She declares.

“Dear Carlisle,” said man reads aloud a little red card, “Salutations from an old friend on your happy day.” Carlisle scans the name, but he doesn’t say ‘ _ Aro _ ’ aloud, instead tucking the card into his pocket quietly. Esme glances at him questioningly, but he only smiles at their guests.

“Well - let’s see what it is!” He says, and Edward fetches a wrench from the bathroom cabinet - another place strange things gathered when bathing was only a necessity for the want of a dusting.

Prying open the lid, and two of the side panels, reveals a royal blue automata pendulum clock. About two feet high and one and a half across. The automaton design was two people on a boat, one man rowing, the other a woman holding a parasol. Behind the woman, two dogs were napping.

Dr Goldstien tuts. “It looks like a brute of a thing - perhaps if all the men put our backs in to it?” He suggests, and Joseph’s chest puffs up at being included with all the men.

But the hassle of balancing most of the weight of the clock, as well as the proximity to two humans would be more trouble than either Carlisle or Edward wanted to deal with. “Oh, no,” Carlisle assures them quickly, reaching in himself and gently lifting one side of the clock easily, “deceptively light. Edward and I should manage.” He says with a smile. Edward steps up, and he glances to Esme. “Where do you think?” He asks her gently.

On one of the harder of Esme’s newborn days - Edward and herself had devoted an entire week to shuffling and placing all the furniture in the house exactly to her specifications. The lay of the land was left to her entirely from then on. Esme muses around the room quickly, and settles on a spot with a nod. “The corner?” She prompts. “Where the gramophone used to be.”

“The corner it is.” Carlisle agrees softly, and smiles with such a private gentleness that Edward finds the cuff of his sleeve very interesting instead.

But Edward takes one side of the clock at Carlisle’s call, and together they easily shift it onto the squat side table shoved into the corner.

“Oh - there’s something still in there.” The widow calls, and Esme leans down in the packaging to produce a little key, with an avian design on the end. She passes it to Carlisle, who glances over the machine and finds a little key hole on the back.

Carlisle winds the clock with the intricate little key, and they all crowd around the clock, watching avidly.

It was a clever little machine, with every tick of the second hand; the two rows of waves would move steadily from left to right, and the boat would bob left-side down, to right-side down. Simultaneously, the man’s oars would snap forward and back - rowing the boat across the waves.

“Wonderful!” The widow declares.

“Well - let us in this instance not wait for the clock to strike.” Carlisle suggested, and pushes the hour hand to the next o’clock.

The little bell behind the clock started to chime a little repetitive tune. The woman leans forward, as the man does and they kiss. Then, the dogs jump up, lower jaws snapping open in tune with the bell tolls - the lovers pull away, before leaning back together again. They kiss six times, each time startled by the dogs, before the bells stop, the dogs settle, and the rower rows.

They all applaud at the end, and exclaim at the clever design.

Mrs Goldstien sighs dreamily. “Such a perfectly sweet wedding gift!” She says.

At the end of the little performance, the guests take their leave. The widow and the doctor accept the tins of cookies gladly, the newlyweds are wished every happiness, and the revolting task of tossing away the uneaten food is undertaken.

Esme looks at the dirty dishes with some trepidation. “I remember how much I used to enjoy sponge cake ….” She says, but doesn’t sound at all wistful - rather, she looks mystified, as though she couldn’t quite fit the old want into her new mindset.

Edward waves at her, “I’ll do those, Esme.” He assures her, stepping up next to her at the sink.

But Esme only smiles, and shoves lightly at his shoulder. “I don’t think so,” she hums, and knocks him lightly out the way to run the tap.

Snickering, Edward leaves the kitchen to find Carlisle staring at the automata.

“It’s a very nice gift.” Edward tells him. Carlisle hums in acknowledgement. Edward had never met Aro; though Carlisle had told him plenty about the man. It seemed a little strange to him. Why these Europeans, all the way in the continent, would try and exert control in the New World. The West was still wild, after all, and Edward couldn’t believe telegrams and letters went so far as to keep them informed of everything.

But Carlisle was not thinking about the gift, or the sender. He was only watching the little rower row. He was happy, Edward could see that much - more than content, with this house, and his wife. It felt human on another level - it was something he had never been close to before, when he had had a beating heart.

Carlisle turned his gaze to Edward, his lips turning up. “It’s not playing house anymore, Ted.” He says, no doubt sure Edward had gleaned enough from his thoughts.

Edward inclines his head - because the man was right. With Esme, their home felt so much more real. Edward himself felt much more settled. Less like a bachelor, an idea he never felt old enough to suit him, more like the beloved son. That’s what he had been as a human, after all.

Carlisle grasps his shoulder as he passes through the room, and Edward hears him head to the kitchen.

Esme’s voice sounds slightly strained as she says; “Fulfilling my wifely duties.” And Edward knows she’s fighting her disgust to clean the plate.

Carlisle chuckles at her obvious discomfort. “How very brave.” He replies. “Thank goodness it’s only for today. I hope it’s dreary on Sunday.” His voice is warm and he thinks of the steps of St Vincent. “I have many thanks to give to the lord.”

Edward hears the soft chuckling, and watches the shadows grow longer as the clock hands tick over. He watches the automata lover’s kiss as the clock strikes again. He scowls at it - it was a very mocking little animaton; perhaps Aro meant it as a joke.

Esme had finished with the dishes, and Edward notes he had stood there for most of an hour. He was as aware of it as one would be of determining if the sun was still in the sky. He found it easy to do - it was just as comfortable to stand as to sit, and time meant little when you had so much of it.

Esme gives him a little puzzled look, and leans over to press her nose to his jaw lightly. “Idle, Edward?” She asks him.

“I suppose.” He replies, and sits on the armchair as Esme floats about the room, inspecting the dust that gathers on the tabletops as she tries to garner if it were a noticeable or negligible amount in a human’s eyes. That was the balance Esme struggled with - the intricacies of the living. How clean was too clean? How fast was too fast?

She had been studying the game of catch Edward had initiated outside - marvelled at how controlled Edward had been, taking it upon himself to fumble a ball, or letting the arc of his throw fall too short.To make the imperfection of daily life a million tiny little choices.

But now she looked about the room, and was so well pleased, Edward thought she might want to burst into song.

A memory came to his mind, and it wasn’t his own.

_ “One day,” a little Esme Platt, fingers in the ribbon in her hair, “I will have a house with a husband, and a little boy, and a garden! And I will have a whole room just for my paints, and I’ll wear pretty evening dresses for every dinner.” _

Edward watches as Esme meets his eye and beams. And there’s something ugly and twisted in his quiet heart that cannot stand it.

He feels suddenly very put upon - as though all the air in the house disagreed with them. Unsettled, he heads to the door.

“I think I want for a walk.” Edward tells her stiffly.

Esme follows him, and she’s taken his coat to hold up to his shoulders before he can reach for the handle. “No,” Edward tells her lightly, “I might hunt while I’m out, I don’t want to carry it.” He says, and she looks very disapproving.

She holds out a finger,  _ wait _ , she thinks, and goes upstairs, to her room, and comes back down again in the next moment.

She’s holding a fair isle sweater, and, grimacing, Edward obligingly dons it.

“Go on,” she says, and he’s all too pleased to scurry down to the road.

“You’ll keep Carlisle company a moment, won’t you?” He calls back to her, and her fluttering laugh follows him for the next few steps.

But when he reaches a deserted bit of lonely road - he runs.

He runs and he’s only vaguely sure of the direction, it’s not as though he has a compass. But he knows where he is, and where he’s heading, so he winds up near something familiar.

The city limits have changed - gotten busier, aged and warped.

But Chicago was his home, his first and last real  _ home _ . He stops and recognises the storefront his mother had him frequently accompany her to, though the signage had changed, the wares were different.

Bustles were no longer for sale, a hat store was now a butcher’s.

His house was filled with other people. He stops outside, on the street. A modest home, two stories - taller than it was wide.

His father had chosen the most convincing knock-offs, anything to give the upper-middle-class lifestyle the airs of something more elevated. That was why McManis became Mason, in Edward’s grandfather’s time, as well as the move from the South side to the North.

He looks at his old house, and he hears unfamiliar people within.

_ “My, you could have been brothers,” The lawyer had said, looking very sorrily at a photograph of Edward on the wall. _

_ Edward inclined his head. “We were told that an awful lot.” He says solemnly, trying to convey the sadness a first cousin would feel, having inherited his Uncle’s house from such a tragedy. But he was distracted by the man’s ruddy complexion, all his blood just on the surface of his skin …. _

_ “Mason, was it? Mason Mason?” The man prompts, trying to smile lightly, but even if Edward’s bright black eyes were a trick of the setting sun through the thick clouds, it was an unsettling trick indeed. _

_ “Mason Cullen, actually. My Uncle was mother’s brother - she wanted to keep the family name in some way.” He explains, the lie feeling cumbersome in his mouth, but leaves his lips even and unfaltering. _

He rented it now, below market price. The estate lawyer sent him a few letters, he forgave a few months’ of late rent. It wasn’t particularly necessary to him - he had always thought he would like the idea of his old home never sitting empty. That some other family could make it alive, some other boy could grow up in it too.

But now he stood there, and it became all too stark that for all his ideas - what had happened was that now it wasn’t his home at all. It had been painted, it had strangers in his rooms, and he had thought he remembered it well.

But he was wrong - it didn’t feel strange because those strangers were inside, it felt strange because he no longer felt the same tug to go inside. It was like looking at a picture of a house, and all his corresponding memories matched up, but none of the emotions - they were all just distant impressions now.

He wonders if he’ll ever feel so strongly again.

There’s a face at the window. Edward meets the gaze of a little girl, blinking at him with startled brown eyes.

_ “Mama, there’s a fellow _ ,” the girl’s high voice calls, but Edward is already turning on his heel and hurrying down the street.

He hurries, at a carefully human pace, down and left and right, and he knows where he’ll end up but he doesn’t particularly want to think on it.

But he ends up in the graveyard, and he mutters a prayer to St Peter, and he stares at the grave of Edward Anthony Mason Jr.

The sun has just set, there is no one else about. Edward lies down where he should be laid to rest, and settles on the new grass.

“She thinks of me as her son.” He says, looking to his left. His mother’s final resting place has nothing to offer him in consolation. “Would you consider it a betrayal?” He asks her. He doesn’t turn to his right - his father had nothing much to say to him when he was living, and now Edward hadn’t much to say to him now.

“I’d like a mother again.” He admits quietly, and he doesn’t let himself feel guilty, but still, the admission sits terribly heavy on his chest. It’s so heavy he sits up again, and stares down at the grass.

“I don’t miss you enough.” He whispers. He remembers her, in his grainy human sight. A good woman, proud of him, attentive and loving. But he can’t remember if she wrote letters, he can’t recall her favourite hat. He remembers that she loved him, but he worries that if he saw a photograph of her again - he might be recalling someone else’s face entirely.

He waits most of the night to head back to Indiana. When he makes it through the front door, Carlisle and Esme are already at the ready, looking both worried and relieved.

They don’t ask him questions, they even try to avoid thinking about it - but by some coincidence they all end up sitting in the living room, where the fire was already lit. Something small and homey that Esme enjoyed.

He takes up the paper, still on the reading rod, while Esme picks up her knitting again, and Carlisle glances over his new medicinal journal. But he knew they were both waiting for him to speak. “I went back to see my grave - they’re keeping the place very clean.” He says finally.

Carlisle settles, the plea of Edward’s desperate mother still rang in his ears, at times. “That’s good to know, your parents deserve to rest well.” He says.

Edward hikes the paper higher, so his face is obscured as he mutters; “My old parents.”

The other two are so pleased with his answer, he feels the words less traitorous than before. The trip to his grave had made certain at least one thing - these people were as dear to him as the memories of his human life.

Carlisle rose from his seat sometime in the early morning. He puts away his papers, and shares a smile with them both. “I have a gift for you, Esme, that I hope Edward hasn’t spoilt.” He says, playfully wrinkling his nose at the boy.

Edward smiles, cheered by surprise on Esme’s face. “I didn’t breathe a word!” He swore, crossing his fingers over his bosom.

Carlisle disappears upstairs, and Esme pins Edward with a teasingly evaluative look, but he purses his lips and says not a word.

Carlisle came down soon enough, holding a small square with a handkerchief covering it. He hands it to Esme, stood beside her chair and his expression becomes nervous. “Before we had your baby buried in your plot,” he says in a voice both quick and measured. Esme stops all motion, looking at Carlisle with a completely blank face. “I took the liberty …. I thought you’d like something from him.”

Esme silently removes the cloth, and stares down at the frame. It had a single lock of hair, short and scant.

Esme stares in wonder. “This was his?” She asks reverently. Carlisle inclines his head, shooting Edward a nervous look that only diminishes when Edward nods slightly back to him. Esme wasn’t upset, not by the gift. But she did wonder if it hurt the same as it used to, and she struggles to recall his face. “Oh yes - I think I remember, just a wisp of honey ….” She says gently, and strokes one white finger over the glass. “Thank you.”

Her thoughts stay on her little baby, whatever images of him she could properly imagine, and Edward and Carlisle are pleased enough that she found the moment at most bittersweet - Edward didn’t make it a habit to pay attention to details. With no humans to emulate, it’s with vampiric speed that Esme takes the little thread-snippers from the side table, runs her fingers over the nape of her own neck, and snips at a small loc of her own hair from under her ear.

Carlisle gasps and Edward lets out a surprised hiss. “Wait!”

There was a crunching sound as the screw snaps under the strain, and Esme draws her hand back in alarm. The bows warped and crushed around her fingers, the shanks were twisted too.

She’s too shocked to move, looking between the two men as Edward gently pries the scissors from her loose grip. “What?” She asks.

Carlisle frowns. “I’m sorry, I never thought -” he shakes his head, “it’s as strong as the rest of you, now.” He explains.

Edward looks worriedly at Esme’s confused and shuttered expression. “You can rip it, if you’d like?” He offers.

“I wouldn’t.” Carlisle advises. “It frays unevenly.”

“Well, then how?” She asks quietly.

Edward shrugs, and snaps his teeth twice. It shocks Esme - and Edward realises she’s never heard the grinding sharp ‘thump’ their teeth made. Like striking a rock against the sidewalk. Edward looks to Carlisle. “It’s how you did it.” He adds.

Carlisle inclines his head, and glances down at Esme’s now curious stare. “The fashions of the time called for longer locks.” He glances at Edward, who ignores his slightly narrowed gaze and Esme claps once, quickly.

“Then I’ll use yours!” Esme says excitedly. Eger, she turns to Carlisle with bright eyes that he grins bemusedly into. “Did you keep any?” She asks him. Edward begins to laugh, and only increases as Carlisle doesn’t immediately answer.

Carlisle watches the boy’s display with some of his own amusement. “I … actually think so.” He admits slowly, and then shrugs. “Burnt most of it - it doesn’t burn the way human hair does.” He tells Esme, who frowns a little.

She hums slightly, her brow furrowed. “Human hair breaks down over time, doesn’t it?” She asks the room quietly. Edward’s smile slips off his face at her troubled expression. “I’ll be here for a while - I wonder … if I should stand to keep this.” She examines the little picture frame, the few hairs pressed against the glass. “I’ll outlast it, and wouldn’t it feel terrible, to watch it crumble?”

Carlisle thinks on the carefully preserved, yet still rotten, wooden cross that hung now at the entryway to their home. Edward muses on his house in Chicago, full of strangers.

“I think it’s worth it.” Edward says softly.

Carlisle hums, inclines his head. “I too think whatever comfort it brings you, for however long it lasts - is worth the mourning.” He rests a hand on Esme’s shoulder, his lips quirking up bittersweetly. “We still mourn the memories, even if you didn’t keep it.”

Esme places both hands over the frame, holding the fragile hairs that would one day turn to dust before her eyes. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of never sleeping is ... horrific.


End file.
